ANN has been provided with additional details on a story we presented several days ago, about a pilot who recently prevailed in a discrimination lawsuit against Connecticut based PrivatAir. 

According to counsel for the pilot, Captain Doyle Baker, the trial lasted a solid three weeks. It resulted in a 12-person jury returning a total verdict of $63,889,000 in Los Angeles Superior Court, finding that the luxury air charter company PrivatAir had unlawfully discriminated against Captain Doyle Baker by using his age as a motivating factor in his termination.

Among new details emerging from this story is the report that the jury also found that PrivatAir and flight crew members had defamed and intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress on Captain Baker, who served as chief pilot to movie stars Demi Moore and Bruce Willis during his employment at PrivatAir.

"This verdict should remind all employers that refusing to treat older employees fairly can be very costly," said Michael L. Kelly, the lawyer who represented Captain Baker at trial.

"This company was more concerned with the image they project to their wealthy clientele than with giving a fair deal to an experienced employee with a perfect flying record."

The suit, filed last year by the then-63-year-old Captain Doyle D. Baker, alleged that PrivatAir violated the California Fair Housing and Employment Act when it terminated his employment on July 22, 2004. Willis and Moore had retained PrivatAir to manage their Gulfstream II aircraft.

In the suit, Captain Baker claimed that PrivatAir, two other pilots and a flight attendant had conspired to defame and inflict severe emotional distress upon him.

A highly decorated veteran of 242 combat missions, and a pilot with a perfect military and civilian flight record, he was terminated by PrivatAir after a flight attendant serving on the aircraft sent a letter to Willis, Moore, and PrivatAir accusing Capt. Baker of serious safety violations and portraying him as suffering from mental problems, feeble minded and too old to continue to fly.

During pretrial discovery, the flight attendant admitted that he had not written the letter, but that the other two pilots employed by PrivatAir had.

Evidence was presented at trial in support of Captain Baker's allegation of a conspiracy among the flight crew, assisted by PrivatAir, to replace Captain Baker with a younger pilot, who was a personal friend of one of the defendant pilots.

The jury verdict, rendered in two phases in the Downtown Los Angeles Courtroom of the Honorable Judge Joseph Kalin, awarded Captain Baker back pay, future loss of earnings, pain and suffering and emotional distress damages in the total amount of $53,885,000.00 and subsequently rendered an additional award of punitive damages in the amount of $10,014,000.00.

Captain Doyle Baker remains a highly qualified pilot in good standing with the Federal Aviation Administration.

FMI: www.KirtlandPackard.com, www.privatair.com